A Critique Of “Do We Have Free Will To Choose Salvation” by Richard Bushey

Richard Bushey, the author of the blog
ThereforeGodExists.com posted an article that I almost completely disagreed with (which is surprising because I usually agree with things that he writes). He wrote an
article criticizing free will, and the ability to either choose or reject God.
In Richard's recent article, he writes some pretty bad arguments against synergism. You can view the original article here. By
the way, Richard is the moderator in all of the debates I’ve been in. If you’ve
been over to the “My Video Debates” section, you probably already know of him.

He starts off the article accurately summarizing a description of
libertarian free will. Then he says “Our salvation must be
decreed and offered to us by God himself.”Well, I wouldn’t disagree with that. I
too believe that our salvation is decreed by God. I believe like the Calvinists that God predestines individual people unto salvation. However, I see individual predestination in a different sense than the Calvinists see it. I believe God decreed to actualize a feasible world where I
endured through certain circumstances, and because I ended up enduring through
those circumstances, I ended up being saved, because God knew from eternity
past that I would make the option to receive Him as my God and Savior if I endured
through just those circumstances. This view is called Molinism, and it’s how I
think God predestines people.

God predestines people by means of His middle knowledge. God
knew, for example, that if Bob ended up in circumstance
U. God, in His middle knowledge
knew, “If Bob were in circumstance U, he would choose to action A over action
B”. So in order to get Bob to freely choose action A, all God has to do is
actualize a possible world where circumstance U is actualized, and as a result Bob chooses action A instead of
action B. God’s purpose (the actualization of Bob choosing action A) is
realized but God did not have to force or causally determine Bob to do such.
God’s achieved His purpose through His omniscience rather than His
omnipotence.

In the above scenereo, you could let “Action A” stand for
“choosing to accept Christ’s offer of redemption”. I believe God does this with
salvation. God elects individuals by means of creating them in circumstances
where God knows they would choose Him if put in those circumstances. God chose
which possible world He wanted to actualize from eternity past. So it could be
said that God predestined Bob since He chose “from the foundations of the
world” (see Ephesians 1:4-5) to create a world where Bob is in circumstance
U and so Bob chooses A. It’s a free decision because God didn’t decree the
proposition “If Bob were in circumstance U, He would freely choose A over B”.
Bob made that proposition true. All God did was act on His knowledge of that
proposition. This is what William Lane Craig means when He says “It is up to
God whether we find ourselves in a world in which we are predestined. It is up
to us whether we are predestined in the world in which we find ourselves”.
For more on this, see my blog post “Molinism and Divine Foreordination” and “Is Molinism Biblical”.

However, given the wider context of the statement, it seems
obvious that when he says “Our salvation must be decreed and offered to us
by God himself.”He does not mean it
in the same sense I mean it. Rather it he means it in the same sense Calvinists mean it; that God picks and chooses whom to save and whom to damn from eternity past, and then offers irresistible grace to monergistically or unilaterally compel that person to faith.

Richard then says that nobody would ever choose God. We’re
so evil at heart that we would only and always reject God. He then goes on to
describe a view called Total Depravity, and goes on to give the biblical scriptures supporting that doctrine. This is not something I would disagree with. I agree that we are totally depraved. I agree that in our
natural state, we would never freely choose to accept Christ as our savior. I
agree with his interpretations of the various scriptures he uses to support
Total Depravity. In fact, if you read my blog post linked to above titled “Is
Molinism Biblical” I argue for Total Depravity as well.

However, I don’t think the doctrine of Total Depravity is enough
to warrant the conclusion that salvation is a unilateral decision on the part
of God, and that we humans have no say whatsoever in whether we serve Him. All
that proves is that in the absence of God’s grace, it is impossible to come to
Him. This is what the doctrine of resistible grace is, or “Overcoming Grace” as
its called in the Molinist R.O.S.E.S. God’s grace is required in order for us
to be able to come to Him. Without it, I agree with my Calvinist brothers that
we would only vote against God every time salvation was offered to us.

Jesus said in John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the
Father who sent me draws Him.” But fortunately for mankind, Jesus
also said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all
people to myself” (John 12:32).
Jesus is sending prevenient or resistible grace to every single human being so
that they can be saved (i.e is drawing all people to Himself), because all people are precious to Him. 2 Corinthians
5:18-19 says "(God) has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in
Christ reconciling the world to Himself...." We could easily
interpret this phrase “God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself” to
mean that God was sending previenent and resistible grace to draw everyone to
salvation, not that God was forgiving every single human beings of their sins,
because some won’t believe (see John 3:18).

John 1, the very first chapter of John’s gospel and the most
glaring statement affirming Jesus’ divinity, states in verse 4 that “In Him
(Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” Verse
7 says that John The Baptist “…came
as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through Him all might
believe.” and in verse 9, The Bible says "The true light
that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." What type of light is being given to every man? Well, many
Arminian theologians will say that this light is prevenient grace. The word
“Light” is used to refer to Jesus, obviously. But it’s also used to describe
something that Jesus gives to people (i.e "The true light that gives
light to everyone").

God offers his amazing saving grace
in his Son to sinners, but allows them to choose whether they will accept it or
reject it (see Deuteronomy 30:15-19, Joshua 24:15). Hence, in the case of
Israel, the God who loves all and works for the salvation of all says, “All
day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people”
(Romans 10:21).

Richard acknowledges prevenient/resisible/overcoming grace
as an answer to the problem of depravity offered on the part of the
non-Calvinist. But he argues that it doesn’t solve the problem. He says “First
of all, if God were to offer prevenient grace to everybody, then why is it that
everybody does not turn to him in faith? Is it that one person is more
righteous than another? Is one person more wise than another? Obviously not,
because salvation is not a matter of how righteous we are, lest we be guilty of
salvation by works. We are left to think, then, that God grants more prevenient
grace to one person than he does to another”

First of all, just because I can’t
explain why some people choose to receive Christ and why others don’t is
irrelevant. Just because I can’t explain why some make a certain choice while
others make the opposite choice, it does not follow that therefore we’re
justified in inferring that the choices both sets of people make is causally
determined. For the record, as a Molinist, I can’t explain how God knows counterfactuals,
but I believe He knows and believes all true counterfactuals anyway because I
think a truly omniscient Being would have such knowledge. In fact, I
can’t even explain how God created the universe without using any pre-existing
materials. But does that mean I should abandon the doctrine of creatia ex
nihilo? I’m content with these things simply remaining mysteries. But
Richard is certainly right in saying that whatever the answer is as to why some
come to Christ and why others don’t, in light of God’s resistible grace being
offered to all mankind, it is certainly is not because some are more righteous
than others.

Richard’s conclusion, therefore, that “We are left to
think, then, that God grants more prevenient grace to one person than he does
to another. But this leaves us with monergism, rather than synergism.” Is a
non sequitor, and an argument from ignorance.

Besides, we have powerful scriptural evidence for resistible
(as opposed to irresistible) grace such as what I’ve sighted above.

Richard then brings out the old tired argument that if salvation isn’t a causally determined, unilateral decision on God’s
part, then the only other option is to believe that we’re saved by works. I'm stunned that he actually thinks this a good argument against synergism. It’s just such a silly argument.

I've adhered to an Arminian theology my entire life. It's
the soteriology I held when I came to Christ. Only recently did I modify it
with middle knowledge and started calling myself a Molinist. But yeah, I’ve always held to that sort of theology. When I came
to Christ, I believe I chose to receive Him, but I did not believe that I saved
myself. In fact, I knew that I could have done none of the requirements for my
salvation. I knew then as I know now that it was God who pursued me with my stubborn and rebellious heart until I submitted to Him.

I don’t think I can take any credit in my salvation not at
all. I praise God every day for saving me. Here’s what God did: God created the
universe, became incarnate in the womb of Mary, grew up, willingly
submitted Himself to scourging and crucifixion, by being crucified, He
took the wrath of God on Himself so that I wouldn't have to. God then finished
the job by raising Christ from the dead 3 days later. Fast forward 2,000
years, God enabled my heart to believe by prevenient grace. He tried to woo me
over to His side by His grace. We all know that without grace of any kind,
repentance would be impossible (see John 6:44,
John 6:65). God has to unbound our hands so that we can choose other than
damnation. Without grace, we would only choose Hell, because we are spiritually
dead in sins (Ephesians 2:1-3; Colossians 2:13)
and are slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-20).

Here's what I did: I made a free decision to place my faith in Christ. That's it. That's all. That doesn't seem very special to me, or anything like I should receive any praise over.

Here’s an analogy Jerry Walls often gives: The electric
company harnesses the water, stores the power, converts it to electricity,
builds a network to transfer the electricity to your home and manages it's
strength through the electrical lines, monitors the entire system, somebody
else invents and builds the light bulb and the lighting mechanism .... you walk
into a room and think, "it's a little dark in here - I can't see."
You decide to merely flip the light switch- everything was done for you to
receive the light - all you did was say yes. Would anyone seriously say that
you “worked” for your electricity merely because you flipped a switch? Please. If you said that to someone they’d
laugh at you. So why don’t we laugh when Calvinists make the same type of
argument?

God did so much to win my salvation. All I did was stop resisting. I can hardly
boast in that. Did I create the universe? Did I carry Jesus' cross? Did I raise Jesus from the dead? Did I send forth The Holy Spirit to draw me to repentance? No. I did none of those things. God did, but if He chose not to,I would still be in
open rebellion against Him. In other words, if God didn't choose to save anyone, nobody would be saved. He must choose us so that we can choose Him.

Moreover, the choice to be saved and the choice to be
condemned are vastly different. While I don’t
believe a man can work his way into Heaven, I certainly believe that you do have
to work your way into Hell. In fact, you have to work very hardat being condemned. You have to resist God's
Spirit (Acts 7:51)
and suppress the truth of God’s existence as seen in nature (Romans 1:18-20). A man must work very hard not to believe in spite of the inner witness of God's Spirit coupled with the overwhelming evidence for the truth of Christianity. By
contrast, a man just simply has to stop resisting for faith to come.

It's like the difference between two men in a
powerful river current. One man swims upstream. The other man just simply let's
the current of the river take him downstream. One actually worked to get to his
destination, the other one simply chose not to do anything.

Kenneth Keathely uses an ambulance analogy.
Imagine you wake up and discover that you are in an ambulance being transported
to the emergency room. You clearly require serious medical help. If you do
nothing, you will be delivered to the hospital. However, if for whatever reason
you demand to be let out, the driver will comply. He may express his concern,
warn you of the consequences, but he will abide by your wishes. You receive no
credit for being taken to the hospital, but you do receive all the blame for getting
out.

I actually kind of like
Keathely’s analogy and Brenden Paul Burnett’s river analogy better than Walls’ analogy.
On Keathley’s analogy, if a person ends up in the hospital, it’s because he
didn’t make any choice at all. But if he ended up not going to the hospital,
it’s because he fought the paramedics and won. So the paramedics get all the
praise if the injured person ends up at the hospital and gets healed, but the
individual gets all the blame if he doesn’t end up there. It’s simply a lack of
resistance in both the ambulance and river analogies that the person ends up at
their destination. Their choice is technically the absence of choice. The same
can be said of our salvation. Choosing God is actually just choosing not to
resist His advances.

You know, I cannot for the life of me figure out how freely assenting to a gift equals a meritorious work. If someone offered me a present and I freely chose to accept it, and then claimed that I worked for it merely because I made a free choice to accept the gift, people would laugh at me. They would point out all of the work they did to get me the present and proceed to tell me that I didn't work for my gift at all. Yet when monergists say things like "If you could freely choose God, you'd be saved by works, not grace", people don't immediately recognize the absurdity in that like we would in the case of freely assenting to gifts given by humans. But it is absurd nonetheless. It's absurd to think that merely because you assented to a gift on your own choice that you somehow "worked" for it.

Then Richard argues that we
are either slaves to sin, and slaves to righteousness. Richard said that people
who are slaves may be able to choose some things, but only within a very
limited scope. They may be able to choose some things, but only within the confines
of their slavery. He says that they cannot choose their freedom. In the case of
sin slavery, he says, that a younger man might be choose to be a slave
to partying, drinking, smoking, and lust. An older man might be a slave to
money, wealth, power, and comfort. So they can choose what they’re slaves to,
but not whether they get free.

Richard goes on to list several scriptures that affirm
that we’re slaves to sin. Now, I don’t at all disagree with Richard on this. Nevertheless, I think that he is taking a biblical illustration and is stretching it like Calvinists (and Calvinistic Molinists) usually do with biblical metaphors.

In fact, I’ve used the example of a slave (actually a
hostage) in other writings to illustrate the point that we can’t choose our
freedom, but that if a hero comes along, we’d be able to choose freedom. I said
Let’s say that your hands were tied behind your back and tape was covering your
mouth, because you’re a hostage to a man named Mr. Sin Nature. A hero comes
along and offers to take you out of the dungeon this evil man is keeping you
hostage in. He offers you to lead you to the exit, but you cannot possibly
respond to him because you’re bound and gagged. So what this hero does is to
untie your hands and remove the tape from your mouth and then offer to
lead you to the exit. If He didn’t untie you, you wouldn’t even be able to
respond. Fortunately, He does untie you and then offers to lead you to the exit
of the dungeon. But suppose you, for whatever reason, don’t want to leave?
You’re comfortable in this prison you’ve been in for so long. You've got
Stockholm Syndrome. This hero now, in addition to enabling you to leave, has to
persuade you to leave. Time is running out though. Mr. Sin Nature is a mad man
and has threatened to blow up the dungeon with dynamite! Mr. Jesus has a
limited amount of time to persuade you to leave the dungeon before you are
destroyed! You can exercise your libertarian free will to either go with this
hero or to accept your own demise. This is akin to how God saves people on my view. This is an analogy to total depravity and
prevenient/resistible grace.

Now, whether you use the illustration of a slave, or a
hostage, it’s clear to everyone that you can’t choose your freedom apart from
outside help. However, if someone comes to rescue you, you can either choose to
go with him, or you can fight with him. Jesus said “Very
truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no
permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son
sets you free, you will be free indeed. " - John 8:34-36

But I believe people have the
freedom to say “To heck with you, Jesus! I’m happy with the way things are!” or
“Thank You Lord, I will follow You all the days of my life.”. In other words,
people can “resist The Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). In fact, now that I think about it, in the Old Testament Jewish law, slaves were to be released every 7 years. It was called a Jubilee. However, the slave had a choice whether or not he wanted to go free. If he had grown emotionally attached to his master, he was allowed to stay.So I guess there's a real life example of a slave being able to choose his freedom after all!

Why do some choose to follow Him
rather than others, given that God’s resistible grace is extended to all people? I don’t know. But that doesn’t shake my confidence that
resistible grace is true. Especially considering all of the places in scripture
that affirm it (as I cited above) as well as other places where we can infer it (see my post "Something For Calvinists To Chew On" for a few of those).

The Bible’s claim that we’re
slaves to sin in no way warrants the conclusion that salvation is a causally
determined, unilateral, irresistible type of thing. People can choose to remain
in their cages even after a hero opens the door.

The final argument against synergism that Richard makes in the article is the argument that if God is laboring to save
everyone, and yet not everyone is saved, than God is a failure. I've heard this argument from several Calvinists in the past, and I'm never persuaded by it. I’m extremely surprised that Richard would buy into
such a terrible argument. The flaws seem obvious.

God is not a failure simply because some aren’t saved. God
could unilaterally move everyone into Heaven if He wanted to, but He doesn’t
want to. Space does not permit me to go into God's reasons here, but I believe that there are
several good reasons why God preferred to actualize a possible world with
libertarian free will rather than causally determined creatures. But one thing
would be that without free will, our love for God would not be genuine. Genuine
love must be given freely. God wants our love for Him to be genuine, and if it
were determined, it wouldn’t be. It would be like programming a robot to show
you affection. Would you feel loved, or would the robot seem just as cold as
before?

Christ allows people to perish because He would rather people love Him because they choose to rather than being programmed to. God wants children, not robots. He doesn't fail. We’re the failures! God holds his power back
on purpose when He draws people to repentance to preserve their freedom. If God
were to determine them, their love for Him wouldn't be genuine (as argued
above)

So God doesn’t fail. Human beings fail. In fact, human beings couldn’t fail
unless God permitted them to fail. God permits humans to fail because He didn't
want a bunch of programmed robots mechanically saying "I love You, Jesus! You're the best!" for all eternity. God cannot, however, force someone to freely choose
Him. God cannot do the logically impossible, and forcing someone to freely do
something is as logically impossible as creating a square circle. So if God is
a failure because He can’t force people into Heaven freely, you might as well
call Him a failure for not being able to create married bachelors and square
circles.

God succeeds in saving everybody who chooses to
place their faith in Christ. Whoever chooses to place their faith in Christ
WILL BE saved (see Acts 16:31,
Romans 10:9). God will never fail those who place their trust in Him
(see Deuteronomy 31:8, Hebrews 13:5). Whoever believes in Jesus Christ will be
saved (see John 3:16, Mark 16:16). This is something we can have
confidence in (see Hebrews 11:1, Jude 24-25).

God does not fail anyone who places their trust in Him. The
people who do not place their trust in Him cannot even say that God has failed
them. For God has done everything apart from overriding their free will to save
them. In fact, I believe that this is precisely what renders the unbeliever without
excuse on judgment day. Because God has done everything in His power ((except
overriding their free will)) to save them, they are rendered completely unable
to point any finger at God. For whatever they say, God can respond with something like “What else
did you want me to do? I provided overwhelming evidence for my existence throughout
nature, I died on the cross for your sins, I extended my grace to you every
time the gospel was preached to you and every time a Christian apologist
debated you, I gave you many decades worth of opportunities to change your
mind, yet you still insisted on living a life of open rebellion against me! For
that, I am condemning you.”

I
find the failure argument very weak. I think the reason this argument is prevelent in monergist circles is because of its emotional appeal, but it doesn't have much substance to it than that. There is a lot more that could be said about it,
but since this blog post is getting lengthy, let me just point out one more thing. Let me cite one of many
biblical passages that show God intending something that does not happen, such
as the passage cited below

Neh 9:28-31 -- ‘And many times You rescued them according to
Your compassion, And admonished them in order to turn them back to Your law.
Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to Your commandments but sinned
against Your ordinances, By which if a man observes them he shall live. And
they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen.
*However, You bore with them for many years,* And admonished them by Your
Spirit through Your prophets, Yet they would not give ear. Therefore You gave
them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in Your great
compassion You did not make an end of them or forsake them, For You are a
gracious and compassionate God.”

Now notice that God instructed them by his
Spirit; this is the Spirit's action upon them for the divine purpose of getting
the people to turn back to God Almighty. Here’s the kicker; the word translated
"bore" is actually the same word used in John 6 for "draw".
The same Greek word that Calvinists insist must refer to irresistible dragging
is used in the LXX, which the early church generally used for its Bible to
refer to God drawing Israel to repentance by his Spirit, but such drawing was
clearly resisted. As one member of the Society Of Evangelical Arminians once
remarked to me; this word should really be translated in the English of both
the Hebrew and Greek, "But you drew them". Alrighty then, now let me
ask you something; was God a failure because he purposed to turn Israel back through his admonition, yet they refused? God's
purpose was not fulfilled. Does that make him a failure? No, because he allowed
his purpose to be rejected. He allowed the people to freely choose. Again, the
people failed, not God.

God's not a failure for sovereignly permitting people to live without Him. To think that God is a failure just because He sovereignly allows people to reject Him is absurd.

In conclusion, Richard's argument does nothing to undermine syngergism. All of these are bad arguments against synergism.